HAILSHAM: Film puts spotlight on Starfish Project

Anne Blight

AWARD-WINNING film The King’s Speech looks set to sweep the boards at next month’s Oscars ceremony.

Based on a true story, the film stars Colin Firth as King George VI who overcame a severe stammer thanks to the help of unorthodox speech therapist Lionel Logue.

But away from the limelight, non-profit making programme the Starfish Project, near Hailsham, has helped more than 1,500 stammerers to control their speech over the last 12 years, using the same techniques shown in the film.

Set up by speech expert Anne Blight (pictured), from Ridgewood, the speech therapy project now sees people come from across the globe to the Boship Farm Hotel in Lower Dicker, in order to attend her intensive three day courses.

Following the success of The King’s Speech, project founder Anne wants to improve public awareness of the problems surrounding stammering and inform sufferers there is hope.

“Everyone needs to communicate and for the one per cent plus of the population who has a stammer, they have got this huge hurdle,” she said. “People can fill in a job application and come across as being competent in terms of qualifications, but everybody has got to be seen and heard in an interview and that, for people with a stammer is the hardest thing.

“Stammering is the butt of many a joke. It infuriates me. We don’t laugh at any other disability,” she said.

Based on the same techniques featured in the film, the three-day intensive course teaches users to gain control of their speech by using a different type of breathing, known as costal breathing.

“Every single person who stammers can sing, because they sing on a different breath called the costal breath,” said Anne. “That’s the breath that you can yawn on. Bearing in mind everyone can sing and shout without stammering it stands to reason we can teach people to speak on the same breath. That’s why when people who stammer get angry, they don’t stammer. But we couldn’t have people singing, shouting or swearing as in the film,” she said.

Putting five basic principles together, Anne worked with a friend who had a stammer to create a pilot course.

“It took three days and at the end of the three days, she had fantastic control over her speech. That gave me the impetus to carry on,” she said. “I don’t want to give people false hope. What I want is for people to learn the technique and use it to push out of their comfort zone.”

The Starfish Project now runs 11 courses a year, including two courses for young people aged from 12 to 16.

One of the most crucial aspects of the course means past students come back and teach the techniques to new people.

“Success to one gentleman was being able to go home and order a Chinese meal over the telephone for his family,” said Anne. “Success to another, who was a postman, meant he was able to pursue his dream job. He was highly intelligent but delivering letters meant he didn’t have to speak. All he ever wanted to do was be a teacher and now he is.

“Nine years ago a young man came from a family of airline pilots. When I asked him what he would like to achieve, he said, ‘to fly planes, but I never will’.

“After three months of using the technique, he went on to start his pilot training. Then one day I got a call saying, ‘Anne this is Captain Penfold.’ If he had been my own son I couldn’t have been more proud. He now flies 747s all over the world.”

However ultimately, Anne believes people are responsible for their own recovery. “People who come to the course come with 110 per cent commitment. You come taking responsibility for your own recovery.

“If you want to stop smoking, you’ve got to stop lighting cigarettes. They have got to make a change in the way they think about themselves - not as stammerers but as recovering stammerers.

“They have got to go out and face the public and all the feared situations they have had before.”

r The next course at the Boship Farm Hotel is January 26-28. For more details email mail@starfishproject.co.uk or visit www.starfishproject.co.uk.

This website and its associated newspaper adheres to the Independent Press Standards Organisation's Editors' Code of Practice.
If you have a complaint about editorial content which relates to inaccuracy or intrusion, then contact the
Editor by clicking here.

If you remain dissatisfied with the response provided then you can contact the IPSO by
clicking here.

Eastbourne Herald provides news, events and sport features from the Eastbourne area. For the best up to date information relating to Eastbourne and the surrounding areas visit us at Eastbourne Herald regularly or bookmark this page.

For you to enjoy all the features of this website Eastbourne Herald requires permission to use cookies.

Find Out More ▼

What is a Cookie?

What is a Flash Cookie?

Can I opt out of receiving Cookies?

About our Cookies

Cookies are small data files which are sent to your browser (Internet Explorer, Firefox, Chrome etc) from a website you visit. They are stored on your electronic device.

This is a type of cookie which is collected by Adobe Flash media player (it is also called a Local Shared Object) - a piece of software you may already have on your electronic device to help you watch online videos and listen to podcasts.

Yes there are a number of options available, you can set your browser either to reject all cookies, to allow only "trusted" sites to set them, or to only accept them from the site you are currently on.

However, please note - if you block/delete all cookies, some features of our websites, such as remembering your login details, or the site branding for your local newspaper may not function as a result.

The types of cookies we, our ad network and technology partners use are listed below:

Revenue Science ►

A tool used by some of our advertisers to target adverts to you based on pages you have visited in the past. To opt out of this type of targeting you can visit the 'Your Online Choices' website by clicking here.

Google Ads ►

Our sites contain advertising from Google; these use cookies to ensure you get adverts relevant to you. You can tailor the type of ads you receive by visiting here or to opt out of this type of targeting you can visit the 'Your Online Choices' website by clicking here.

Digital Analytics ►

This is used to help us identify unique visitors to our websites. This data is anonymous and we cannot use this to uniquely identify individuals and their usage of the sites.

Dart for Publishers ►

This comes from our ad serving technology and is used to track how many times you have seen a particular ad on our sites, so that you don't just see one advert but an even spread. This information is not used by us for any other type of audience recording or monitoring.

ComScore ►

ComScore monitor and externally verify our site traffic data for use within the advertising industry. Any data collected is anonymous statistical data and cannot be traced back to an individual.

Local Targeting ►

Our Classified websites (Photos, Motors, Jobs and Property Today) use cookies to ensure you get the correct local newspaper branding and content when you visit them. These cookies store no personally identifiable information.

Grapeshot ►

We use Grapeshot as a contextual targeting technology, allowing us to create custom groups of stories outside out of our usual site navigation. Grapeshot stores the categories of story you have been exposed to. Their privacy policy and opt out option can be accessed here.

Subscriptions Online ►

Our partner for Newspaper subscriptions online stores data from the forms you complete in these to increase the usability of the site and enhance user experience.

Add This ►

Add This provides the social networking widget found in many of our pages. This widget gives you the tools to bookmark our websites, blog, share, tweet and email our content to a friend.